How Oxfam Presented a Systemic Approach to Poverty, Development, Human Rights, and Trade Susan Ariel Aaronson and Jamie Zimmerman 1
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Fair Trade? How Oxfam Presented a Systemic Approach to Poverty, Development, Human Rights, and Trade Susan Ariel Aaronson and Jamie Zimmerman 1 Oxfam, the world’s most influential international development organization, is not represented at the World Trade Organization (WTO)1 and thus cannot directly influence trade deliberations. Yet in the past 5 years, Oxfam has had a remarkable impact in changing both the negotiating agenda and actual WTO policies, albeit one different from its original intent. In 2000, the 12 national Oxfam member organizations agreed to move beyond providing relief and assistance to the poor. They drafted a four-year strategic plan titled “Towards Global Equity.” The Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) vowed to continue to provide relief, while also addressing the structural causes of poverty and injustice. Oxfam’s new approach was based on a systemic analysis of global governance and of the relationship between poverty, human rights, development and trade. 2 Inspired by Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen, the NGO prescribed very specific policies to ensure that WTO rules do not disadvantage development or undermine human rights. With this strategic plan, Oxfam adopted what it called a “rights-based approach.” The NGO vowed to “put economic and social justice at the top of the world’s agenda.” While other civil society groups, academics, unions and activists long argued that trade agreements could undermine specific human rights such as labor rights, Oxfam examined this issue from a broader world view. It pointed out that trade rules can undermine the “rights and interests of poor people” including their rights to food, water, health care and a sustainable livelihood. Noting that poverty, development, human rights and trade are linked and thus must be addressed cohesively, Oxfam argued that these rights must be placed at the center of the agendas of international bodies and governments.3 1 Aaronson is Senior Fellow and Zimmerman, Associate Director, Kenan Institute Washington, Kenan Flagler Business School, UNC. They are grateful for the support of the Levi Strauss Foundation, to the participants in the 1 But in the years that followed, Oxfam did not focus on the relationship between poverty, development, human rights, and trade per se. Nor did it consistently advocate the right-based approach. Instead, it launched an intensive global campaign to “make trade fair” as well as a separate campaign to “make poverty history” for the poor people of the developing world.4 Oxfam developed very specific and persuasive suggestions to ensure that the poor can fully participate in trade. Over 6.5 million people signed its online petition, “The Big Noise,” designed “to change the terms on which millions of people participate in the global market.”5 This article discusses the evolution of Oxfam’s position and its influence on the debate about trade. (We do not examine the make poverty history campaign). To understand Oxfam’s perspective, the article begins with a discussion of the world trade system and why Oxfam (and others) began to see the system as undermining both human rights and development. We then examine how Oxfam’s strategy changed over time—moving from an systemic emphasis on poverty, development, human rights, and trade to a more limited but visible focus on “making trade fair.” Finally, we examine Oxfam’s contribution to the trade debate and its efforts to create a broader understanding of the relationship between poverty, development, human rights, and trade 6 I. The Trade System and Human Rights In December 1941, before the US formally joined the Allies, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke of his vision for the world that he hoped would emerge from the war. “Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere…“We look forward to a world founded on four essential human freedoms.” 7 Roosevelt clearly understood that the failure of some countries to protect human rights had led ultimately to political and economic instability that endangered the whole world. Thus, he hoped to create a global system of governance that would ensure that states would promote and protect these rights. As the international governance Tulane/ University of Nottingham Seminar on Globalization and to individuals at Oxfam International, Oxfam America, and Oxfam Great Britain, who went out of their way to review this article and provide comments. 2 institutions took shape, were negotiated, and finally approved by legislators, they reflected some of Roosevelt’s concerns about human rights. In 1948, the members of the UN agreed to a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which delineated some 26 basic rights that member states were supposed to promote and protect. 8 In that same year, 8 countries became contracting parties to another cooperative legal system-- the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Like the Universal Declaration, the GATT –the precursor organization to the WTO-- was based on similar legal values and approaches such as nondiscrimination, the rule of law, and adjudication of disputes.9 In both the trade and human rights systems, it is states, and not individuals, that have obligations under international law. The purview of the GATT gradually grew over time, but in contrast with Roosevelt’s vision, the GATT said very little about human rights. It did not address the effects of trade (whether trade undermines human rights) or the conditions of trade (how workers, communities and the environment should be treated as good and services for trade are produced.) Moreover, its scope was limited not only by the difficulty of finding common ground among members, but by the authority granted to the Executive by the US Congress. 10 Until 1974, the State Department was only allowed to negotiate commercial policies (tariffs and quotas) and could not address the many other regulations or national policies that could also distort trade. As a result, for much of its history GATT only addressed border measures.11 The architects of the GATT system were well aware that human rights abuses could distort trade (they saw this in Nazi Germany and in the Soviet Union.) Thus, GATT participants could ban imports for “moral” reasons (Article XX.) 12 For the first 40 years of GATT history (1948-1988) members generally resolved conflicts between human rights and trade in an ad hoc, country or sector specific manner. While these solutions may have been politically expedient, they nonetheless often restricted trade (such as trade sanctions or the denial of most favored nation benefits) or required nations to obtain a waiver from their trade obligations.13 In 2003, 3 the WTO granted its first explicit trade waiver based on a human rights rationale. Some 47 nations now ban trade in conflict diamonds.14 The GATT/WTO is not concerned with how a state treats its own citizens, but rather how it treats non-citizens who seek to trade. As law professor Steve Charnovitz notes, international trade law “takes as a given that the responsibilities of a government towards its citizens is a matter to be determined by each government, not by the international community.”15 This contrasts dramatically with human rights law which transcends national sovereignty principles and aims to transmit norms from international law to domestic law. The GATT had no human rights qualifications for participating members, because it is more concerned with relationships between states than with relationships within states. Initially, the bulk of GATT members were democracies, so their human rights practices were rarely an issue. 16 But beginning in the 1980s, a growing number of countries joined GATT/WTO. Some of these countries did not adequately promote and protect human rights; others lacked funds or expertise to enforce their own human rights laws. The accession of such countries raised some concerns, but the issue of the relationship between human rights and trade came to the fore when China, an original GATT member, sought to join the GATT in the 1990s. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the US State Department, among others, found significant human rights abuses in China throughout the 1990s. On June 4, 1989, the Chinese government use violence to suppress democracy demonstrations in Tieneman Square, Beijing.17 But in this period as well, China opened its markets to foreign and domestic private investment. The Communist Party was determined to maintain control, but the party did allow greater openness and some public expression of ideas. Under GATT rules, China could not accede to the GATT unless all existing GATT members granted it most favored nation trade privileges (MFN). 18 In the US, China could only achieve MFN benefits after a Congressional review of its human rights practices required by the Trade Act of 1974. Business interests from the US and 4 Europe generally argued that including China in the framework of multilateral rules and obligations would ensure improvement in China’s adherence to the rule of law and prod China to do more to promote human rights. They stressed that by joining the GATT/WTO, China would learn the skills of good governance, which would spill over into other governance institutions and responsibilities; that greater foreign presence of Western firms within China would expose Chinese workers to ideas about their rights; and, that companies would increasingly demand stronger human rights practices of their suppliers, gradually changing China’s social and political culture. If the US granted MFN, the US could no longer monitor China’s human rights development through annual review, eliminating its ability to use that process as a means of political leverage. 19 Many US policymakers were not keen to lose this lever. Ultimately, the US agreed to grant China MFN privileges despite its human rights practices. But whether the system of rules should do more to promote human rights remained an open question.